Ingrid Newkirk: Animal Rights Crusader

In many people’s minds the name Ingrid Newkirk is synonymous with controversy. The organization she cofounded in 1980, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), has built a reputation for its attention-getting stunts, advertisements, and protests in the name of abolishing cruelty to animals. In fulfilling its simple motto, “Animals are not ours to eat, wear, experiment on, or use for entertainment,” PETA has done everything from sneaking a dead raccoon onto the plate of a famous fur-wearing fashion-magazine editor at a high-end restaurant to staging (every year since 2002) a “running of the nudes” in Pamplona, Spain, as a humane counterpoint to that city’s annual “running of the bulls.” Frequently using sex, celebrities, and shock value to make its points, PETA has many times garnered disapproval, from both those outside and those within the animal rights movement. The organization and Newkirk have been accused at various times of tastelessness, of misanthropy, and of hurting the movement. But despite the perceived extremity of its tactics over its 27-year history, PETA, through the unrelenting spotlight it has placed on the many instances of institutionalized animal cruelty, has achieved successes that have undeniably improved conditions for animals.

Ingrid Newkirk was born in England on June 11, 1949, and reared mostly in India, where her father’s job had taken the family. As a teenager she moved with her father to the United States, and she later married an American. (They divorced in 1980.) Newkirk always felt a strong affinity for animals but did not experience an early calling to work on their behalf. In 1972, however, having moved to Maryland and begun studying to be a stockbroker, she had an encounter with an animal shelter that started her on a new path. Newkirk had taken some abandoned cats and kittens to the shelter. Not having understood the staff’s use of the term “put down,” she thought that the cats would be put up for adoption; when she asked some minutes later to see them, presumably settled in their cages, she was shocked to hear they had all been immediately euthanized.

Deeply bothered by the conditions at the shelter and by the summary disposal of the cats, Newkirk decided to take a job at the shelter, where she was given a position in the kennel. There she witnessed disturbing mistreatment of the shelter animals, including physical abuse and the outright killing of animals already slated to be euthanized. Newkirk often went to work early and stayed until late in order to put the animals down humanely instead. In an interview with the British newspaper The Guardian, she described her actions: “In the end, I’d go to work early, before anyone got there, and I would just kill the animals myself, because I couldn’t stand to let them go through that. I must have killed a thousand of them, sometimes dozens every day. Some of those people would take pleasure in making them suffer…. And I just felt, to my bones, this cannot be right. I hadn’t thought about animal rights in the broader sense…. Working at that shelter I just said to myself, ‘What is wrong with human beings that we can act this way?’ ”

Newkirk stayed at the shelter for a short time and then became an animal-cruelty investigator for the county. She rose to the position of head of the office of animal-disease control in the Washington, D.C., public health commission. In 1980 Newkirk and a colleague from the shelter, Alex Pacheco, founded PETA, whose first office was in Newkirk’s basement. PETA soon began making a name for itself as a radical organization. One of its first actions was a hidden-camera investigation of a research laboratory in Silver Spring, Md., in 1981 that resulted in a police raid on the lab and the first-ever conviction of a scientist on animal-cruelty charges.

Today PETA is the largest animal rights organization in the world, with 1.6 million members. Pacheco, the longtime director of the organization, left PETA in 1999, with Newkirk remaining as president and as the main voice regarding the group’s direction and plans. Her outspokenness—sometimes termed extremism or even fanaticism—is well known, and in 2003 she publicized (in advance) her own last will and testament to draw further attention to many of the practices she and PETA find abhorrent. Among the final requests, according to press releases, were that part of her flesh be cooked in a “human barbecue” and distributed “to remind those who eat meat that it is flesh and that no one needs to eat it”; and that her feet be cut off and used as umbrella stands, “like those made from elephants’ feet, which she saw when she lived in Delhi as a child, to admonish against the use of animals as mere objects for human entertainment.”

How Can I Help?

Books We Like

Free the Animals: The Story of the Animal Liberation Front
Ingrid Newkirk (2000)

Ingrid Newkirk’s book Free the Animals: The Story of the Animal Liberation Front is a fictionalized account of the events that caused one woman to turn from a career as a Maryland police officer and become a wanted criminal and a founder of the real-life Animal Liberation Front (ALF) in the United States.

The ALF is a “nonviolent guerrilla organization,” in the words of one of its spokesmen, that performs nonviolent illegal direct actions to free animals from “all forms of cruelty and persecution at the hands of mankind.” The movement is composed of anonymous individuals and underground cells acting independently; there is no ALF hierarchy directing the actions of its members and hence no central control. This has left the ALF movement open to blame for any actions its members take, including those that might harm people. The ALF officially adheres to a strict prohibition against violence; however, it does not consider attacks against property to be violence, and some animal-liberation activists have attacked people. As a consequence, the ALF has been singled out as a “terrorist” organization, particularly since the post-September 11 crackdown on domestic agitators.

The ALF, and the animal-liberation movement in general, took shape in the United Kingdom in the 1970s and soon spread across the Atlantic. Free the Animals is Newkirk’s take on the foundation of the movement in the United States. Her protagonist, “Valerie,” is a 23-year-old police officer; she becomes involved in the aftermath of a police raid on a laboratory conducting cruel experiments on animals. After witnessing this horror, she begins to participate in direct actions to save animals, and she soon leaves behind her law-enforcement career. Each suspenseful chapter tells of one such rescue through the eyes of Valerie and her cohorts. Newkirk’s organization, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, makes many appearances in the story, as do various real-life animal rights activists. Readers gain something of an understanding of how people may be galvanized to attempt radical change and justify the destruction of property in the name of saving animals. Newkirk’s writing style is serviceable—it has been described as young-adult level—and can be gripping. Although the point of view in Free the Animals is undeniably one-sided, this can be a strength, as Newkirk is able to plead the case of the ALF and give insight into the motivation behind its tactics.

Maddie, are you saying that animals should be used for all the wrong reasons because you think that they are unaware of pain and suffering? Do you honestly think that a dog or a cat does not feel pain when it is being skinned alive for its fur in China? I am sorry to tell you this but the statement you have made is simply ludicrous.

Ingrid Newkirk is a filthy liar. She says that she is all for animal rights when behind closed doors she is KILLING INNOCENT ANIMALS because apparently “no one wants to adopt them”. Yes, she has done SOME good in saving A FEW animals but, in the end, she deserves no awards, no satisfaction, and she definitley doesn’t deserve all this attention and support from all of you.

Casey, do you have anything to support your case? It’s easy enough to call someone a liar (and a “filthy liar” at that!), but would you mind providing something to back up that charge? And, by the way, it would be nice to see sources and citations that do not ultimately come from the so-called “Center for Consumer Freedom.” This â€œPETA kills animalsâ€ theme is being pushed heavily by the CCF, an organization that does PR for the food industry, and the cause of smearing PETA and its kindred organizations has been taken up by the CCF’s fellow travelers. Obviously, they have reason to fear and be angered by PETAâ€™s stance against factory farming and other animal-abuse industries. Their intention appears to be to throw whatever they can at PETA and other groups and hope it sticks. Check out a Web site called SourceWatch and do a search on â€œpeta,â€ and you will find out more about who is behind such campaigns.

whe PETA does it, it’s euthanasia.. when other people do it ,it’s murder.. an argument of convnient exceptions..somwhow I find the “ethical principles” of somebody who admits that “I would just kill the animals myself, because I couldnâ€™t stand to let them go through that. I must have killed a thousand of them, sometimes dozens every day” afte working at the shelter for a short time (“Newkirk stayed at the shelter for a short time”) hollow and hypocriical

Dear RCM,
Confining ourselves to the question of euthanasia, since you bring it up, has PETA in fact called it “murder”? Because that is what you’re saying. I think you’re fudging two issues here in order to make a point—the issues being that PETA is against many actions that result in the death or suffering of animals, and that Newkirk personally engaged in euthanasia in the past. The two concepts are not in conflict. It was, in fact, that experience that was one of the factors that opened her eyes to the need to protect animals to a greater extent than people were doing at the time—as our article says. While many animal advocates are against the euthanization of animals as a “solution” to the pet overpopulation problem, and the no-kill movement is gaining ground, it is still a situation that will take a while to turn around if, in fact, it’s going to. The charge of “murder” against people who in good conscience believe that euthanasia is sometimes the most humane option represents an extremely (deliberately?) un-nuanced view.

Being a supporter of animal welfare my self, I welcome all organisations that advocate sensible pprotection of animals. But I don’t like Newkirk and her communication ways. You may say, this is how she made her organisation aware by the public. But what I don’t like is her hypocritical ways of condemning all forms of animal testing (after all, she’s famous for having once said “”Even if animal research resulted in a cure for AIDS, we’d be against it.”, Vogue, September, 1989, or even “If my father had a heart attack, it would give me no solace at all to know his treatment was first tried on a dog.”, Washington Post, Nov. 13, 1983)
but then, she’s happy to receive medicines, obviously developped thanks to animal testing, without any remorse or second thoughts, as explained on PETA’s blog here :http://blog.peta.org/archives/2007/10/how_ingrid_brok.php
If she was truly enforcing her own guidelines, she would have asked for herbal or homeopathic substitutes from hospital staff as it is advised by PeTA itself (http://www.askcarla.com/answers.asp?QuestionandanswerID=261 ). She could have followed her own principles, like that british Jehovah Witness who died because she refused treatment that was against her religious principles ( http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7078673.stm )especially as her condition (broken wrist) was not life-threatening. But her non-apologetic ways make her dismiss any polemics. Is it a good way of getting attention from the media? Yes. Is it an ethical way of managing a charity organisation? No.

Newkirk actually worked at the animal shelter where she killed animals before they could be abused by fellow employess BEFORE she started Peta AND BEFORE she was even a vegetarian. She does not kill innocent animals and neither does PETA. Although i personally don’t like her personality, i think that her actions are extremely loyal and an example for us all.

I agree with some of PETA’s goals, but I dislike their radical actions and statements. To say that Steve Irwin deserved to die is tantamount to idiocy. Defaming him is equivalent to saying that it is wrong to touch animals. Steve inspired the entire world to care for the creatures we share it with. He will be missed, at least by normal people. I certainly feel the loss.

In addition, their use of nudity and sexuality is a bit too much. Even if you don’t believe in God, nearly all of society believes in some moral code that includes the aforementioned subjects and holds them as somewhat taboo. Leave that to pornography, not to a so-called “ethical” organization. Their ads by Madison and Silverstone and the like are downright disgusting, and quite demeaning at that.

Protesting will get you nowhere in a world where using animals is a way of life. People have rights as well. Just because someone wears fur does not mean that they should be demeaned as they are by PETA protesters. Only those with a cruel heart, such as sealers and Chinese fur farmers (see their website for videos on both these atrocities) should be condemned.

Keep up the work, PETA, but be more conservative. Being as radical as you are will not help you in the long run.

This woman wants to be eaten upon her death. I think she’s beyond crazy, but sure, put a few peppers on her and let’s fulfill her wish. A hypocrite deserves no less. PETA seems largely misogynistic, and they are way too extreme in their views. She would rather let the human population be crippled by AIDS than let one solitary monkey die. Honestly, we are at the top of the food chain for a reason, the same reason why things like Lions share our position. To use the resources below us.

They say euthanasia, but no way all of those animals needed to be euthanised, that’s just murder. I refuse to believe that PETA gets more damaged animals than an organization like the ASCPCA or your everyday average shelter. You see because PETA doesn’t take the majority of its animals, they are given to them by owners that can no longer take care of them. These owners think their pets will find good loving homes…but no, they find the needle.

Apparently at PETA the only things that are fit to be treated like animals are women, funny, because apparently most of the employees are female, and most of the volunteers irrelevant are porn stars (because of course they are deserving of our attention), and has-been actresses or crazy models (hell, most of them are hypocrites as well…you don’t like using animals for clothes? Stop wearing leather fool.)

PETA is a sick joke and I wish it to die a slow but painful death, embarrassment after embarrassment. And let the REAL animal protection groups come to the forefront.